Childhood Reverence

I was looking through some old loose family photos, and came across some real gems from me and my brothers' formative years at our home parish in Nottingham. I won't go and say what parish it is, but I had a great fondness and love for it, and for the Priest there. The first picture is of my baptism (left) and raises some interesting points. Firstly, as you can see, I was quite a bit older than a baby, at the age of 3. It turns out this was because my Dad, a Presbyterian, objected to me being baptised a Catholic, so it was only a long time after, when my mum came to England, that she got round to it.

The next picture is of my brother Damian's First Holy Communion (I assume it was at a similar time, when he was about 8) on the right. This was a similar format to when I first received Communion; we processed into the sanctuary and knelt during the Communion Rite, then received the Blessed Sacrament onto our tongues. Of course, after this our catechists encouraged us to receive in the hand like everyone else, but I suppose the priest wanted to make the First time as reverent and special as possible, and so insisted upon the traditional way.

The next picture (left) is of myself, just having received First Holy Communion, processing down out of the sanctuary back to our pews. I didn't know I was being photographed: I really was that pious (or at least carefully instructed by the Priest to be)!! I just love this photo, and it gives a fairly good view of the sanctuary which is quite important before I display my next photo.

This Parish Priest was present from 1982 until 2000, so during my whole childhood in Nottingham. His predecessor was responsible for the reordering of the church in the 1970s (details of which I am unaware of), but thankfully, as you can see from the above photos, certain traditional features like the altar rails were retained. However, during the 1990s (after I had left the Parish) there was further reordering of the sanctuary. The altar rails (which were beautiful) were removed, and the steps widened to cover the entire width of the sanctuary. The whole sanctuary was also carpeted in a nice red colour (not, I hasten to add, to make kneeling more comfortable!)

Frankly I don't know why this was decided upon, but on my last visit there I had a glimpse of some possible explanations. Before communion, a whole army of 'eucharistic monsters' (or more properly speaking, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion) processed up to the altar in a long wide line (now possible with a new open, spacious sanctuary). They received communion at the same time as the Priest (a new replacement since 2000) and took a huge amount of time to receive the Sacred Chalices for distribution. The whole spectacle was actually quite embarrassing, and I could never quite work out the justification for the use of so many lay ministers. I assume its an effort to be more 'inclusive' but more likely turns out to be a way for prominent parishioners to display a degree of authority.

In any case, I have one picture left which to some degree displays these changes. Up till now, I would forgive you for thinking of me as pedantic, but something tells me these things do make a difference. The last picture; my little brother Jerome's First Holy Communion:

I rest my case.

P.S. Love you Jerome!